General Information

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (abbreviated as "DDO") is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Turbine, Inc. Turbine has developed DDO as an online adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D). DDO is based loosely on the D&D 3.5 Ruleset and set on the fictional continent of Xen'drik, in the world of Eberron. layers can create their characters following the revised edition of D&D 3.5 rule-set fashion, and play them in both indoor and outdoor environments, including a large variety of dungeons.

Although the game is based in large part on the D&D 3.5 rule-set, it contains numerous changes from the tabletop game, most of which were introduced due to differences in the dynamics between the media of computer game combat and tabletop gaming. For example, Turbine wanted DDO to use a real time combat engine, where tabletop D&D uses a turn-based system.

The core of the game is set in the city of Stormreach, a giant-scaled city built eons ago, and recently settled by humans. There are a number of areas within Stormreach - the Docks, the Harbor, the Marketplace and the four Dragonmarked Houses - House Deneith, House Jorasco, House Kundarak and House Phiarlan. In addition, there are a number of adventures that are taken beyond the city walls, into distant lands such as Tangleroot Gorge, Threnal, Three Barrel Cove and Sorrowdusk Isle, each home to one or more adventures of their own.

Generally, the plot of the game revolves around the following dark plots:

Giants attempting to regain mastery over the city of Stormreach and the continent of Xen'drik

Cultists attempting to reopen the gate to Xoriat

Minions of Khyber (Eberron), attempting to gain power over Xen'drik

Quests

The quests in DDO are organized by character level, difficulty and length. Each quest has a base level, and the XP reward increases if all of the party members are below that level, and decreases if any of the party members are above that level. Characters more than three levels below the "base level" are not allowed to initiate a quest, however they are able to join a quest started by another party member.

The quests are narrated by a "Dungeon Master" who gives additional details and information to the players about what they see and hear on their adventure.

Difficulty levels

Currently, there are four difficulty levels for quests:

Solo

Normal

Hard

Elite

Hard and Elite increase the XP bonus the first time the quest is run at the given level, and generally provide a much more challenging experience to the players. As a bonus, the quality of the "loot" (items, equipment, etc) in the chests in hard and elite is better. Generally speaking, the highest level quests on the Elite setting offer the best loot, although that is not always the case.

On the other hand, Solo offers very little loot, and few, if any special items. Generally, the Solo difficulty section has been added recently to the game (June 2006) in order to make it more accessible to lower-level characters who do not have a group. There was until Module 6 a huge XP reduction for solo play (this was reduced to from 50% to 20% with the launch of Module 6), and only low (6th and lower) level dungeons offer this capability.

Races

Current player character races are:

Humans

Elves

Dwarves

Halflings

Warforged

Drow

Classes

Currently there are nine (11) playable classes with no race restrictions. Following the 3.5 edition rules and the rules of the Eberron campaign, players choose a class to begin with but are not limited to remaining in that class. For example, a cleric may choose to gain a level in the rogue class, as well as any other class the player chooses for a total of three (3) classes; up to a maximum of twenty (20) total levels.

Current classes are:

Barbarian

Bard

Cleric

Favored Soul

Fighter

Monk

Paladin

Ranger

Rogue

Sorcerer

Wizard

Features

The game includes built-in voice chat, integrated into the overall experience.

DDO is an instanced game, where each party receives a private "copy" of a dungeon for their own use.